PARIS &#8212; Ties between France and Turkey, strategic allies and trading partners, abruptly unraveled Thursday after French legislators passed a bill making it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago constitute genocide.

The bill strikes at the heart of national honor in Turkey, which denies the genocide label and insists the 1915 massacres occurred during civil unrest as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, with losses on both sides. But it&#8217;s seen as a matter of principle for some French politicians, and a matter of long-overdue justice for the half a million people in France of Armenian descent, many of whom had relatives among the 1.5 million Armenians killed.

( Burhan Ozbilici / Associated Press ) - Members of a pro-government union shout slogans against France and French President Nicolas Sarkozy outside the French Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2011. Union members protest against France, a day before the lower house of the French Parliament debate a proposal that would punish anyone denying that the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks more than 90 years ago were a genocide.
.The French bill still needs Senate approval, but after it passed the lower house, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan halted bilateral political and economic contacts, suspended military cooperation and ordered his country&#8217;s ambassador home for consultations. Turkey argues France is trampling freedom of expression and that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is on a vote-getting mission before April presidential elections.

France formally recognized the 1915 killings as genocide in 2001, but provided no penalty for anyone refuting that. The bill passed Thursday sets a punishment of up to one year in prison and a fine of &#8364;45,000 ($59,000) for those who deny or &#8220;outrageously minimize&#8221; the killings, putting such action on par with denial of the Holocaust.

French Senate members said in July not to make Turkey an election issuesenat.fr
(From French)

We believe it would not be in the interest of France to leave the relationship and connection to Turkey continue to deteriorate. This country, who found a geopolitical centrality since the end of the Cold War, impresses with its dynamism, economic growth and its growing cultural influence. We found that the words spoken in each of our countries often face far greater resonance than was expected and that the injuries caused by certain statements are slow to heal. It is clear from our interviews that a new verbal escalation would likely be fatal to our relationship and we hope that the campaign for the upcoming legislative and presidential elections will not be the scene of statements that we might regret later.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was accused of allowing the vote to take place in order to appeal to the significant Armenian vote in France ahead of next years elections (...)
French President Nicolas Sarkozys centre-right UMP party, which is suffering in opinion polls, will have won broad support from Frances 500,000 ethnic Armenian voters.
(...)
According to satirical weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaine, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the bill was stupid, his office not denying the report.

Former Foreign Minister Herve de Charette told FRANCE 24 on Thursday that the proposed law is useless and dangerous domestically and disastrous for our foreign policy.

It is imperative that we recognize the horrific acts carried out against the Armenian people as genocide and I will continue to stand with the Armenian American community in calling for the Government of Turkey to acknowledge it as such.

Armenians have their lobbies, but Lobbies are not enough.
If they want to dispute, that what happened to them was not Anti-Terror operations they can go to International-Court of Justice.
Ottomans did Anti-Terror with Armenians just like the USA did with Iraqis.
Simple as that.

Well-known scholars of Ottoman history, such as Bernard Lewis and Andrew Mango, question the appropriateness of the genocide label.
It is time to acknowledge that we are dealing with a genuine historical controversy that should be resolved by scholars rather than politicians.
-- Guenther Lewy, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS

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The world's foremost historian on Islam (Bernard Lewis) disputes the massacres can be termed genocide.
Academic Condoleeza Rice says, that there are "many historical interpretation" of the Armenian thingy.

Indeed, Sunni Man, it's time to move on. A bit like another infamous genocide (6 million?) that I can't quite put my finger on. Though why France is getting its knickers in twist over an event that has absolutely no bearing on it or its interests is beyond me.

Though why France is getting its knickers in twist over an event that has absolutely no bearing on it or its interests is beyond me.

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With the votes of French-Armenians, Sarkozy can now loose the elections in April with 20% instead of 19%.

Turkey has accused France of committing genocide during its colonial occupation of Algeria.
Erdogan says massacres were carried out by French colonialists in Algeria and that Algerians were burned in ovens.

FRANCE recognises its debt to the women and men who participated in the work carried out by France in its former departments in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Indochina and in all the territories formerly under French sovereignty, according a law adopted by the French parliament on 23 February 2005 (1).

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